BIAB bag squeezing methods

[1MadScientist]

I'm looking for different and better ideas for squeezing a bag. Photos would be great. I posted 3 more photos dated 10/23/11 from my brew yesterday here; http://www.flickr.com/photos/madscientistbrewhaus/

I bought a cheap colander, a 'winco cod-14' that I thought would be the ultimate tool, but haven't mastered a good method of using one, especially when my grain bill is big. I would also like to do 10 gallon batches too. I don't like to see good juice go to waste.

 

[Psych]

I use one of those rectangular expandable strainers, the style you'd sling over your sink edges to wash veggies or whatnot, that expands from around 12 inches across to around 18 across.

I pull my bag, gather the ends up and let the initial load of liquid drain then slowly spin it up and tighten the spin a bit so I get a bit of a squeeze going. Then plonk it into the strainer that I swing under it on the brew kettle. I spin the top of the bag further now to get a tighter wring on it, holding the bag steady with one hand. I use rubber gloves for this so I don't scald myself.

Once it seems drained I put the bag on it's sides, and sort of squeeze from top to bottom, like compress the top few inches so that drains down into the middle of the bag, compress the second few inches so that drains further into the bag, etc. until I've squeezed that all out the bottom.

Then I wring some more...really tightly. Then throw it in another pot with a baking rack at the bottom and push down on that, let it sit until my wort is boiling and dump in whatever extra liquid came out of the bag.

I squeeze like nobody's business though, the voile curtain material is bloody strong! And I do this for any grain amount, 8lbs up to 15lbs so far.

 

[Seven]

I don't always squeeze the bag when I do, here's what I do:

1. Place steel turkey fryer basket topside down in large plastic bin (bottom of basket should be facing UP)
2. Place grain bag on turkey basket and press down using a lid from a sauce pot to prevent me from getting burned
3. Once I'm comfortable I got all of the wort that I can from the grains, I discard the grain and dump the freshly squeezed wort collected in the plastic bin into the brew kettle

Sorry, I don't have any pics of the above operation as my hands have always been quite full while all of this goes down.

 

[1MadScientist]

Seven, I like your sticky on BIAB. Don't you squeeze like your photo shows anymore with the basket hanging from the pulley?

This gave me an idea, to make a collar for a plastic bucket and place a turkey basket (right side up) and lower my bag into it, then squeeze with a large diameter stock pot lid. What do you think? Send me your basket and I'll try 'er out!

 

[enkamania]

I ripped a couple of bags doing the lift and squeeze. Now I do the fryer basket, pot lid method

 

[Seven]

Seven, I like your sticky on BIAB. Don't you squeeze like your photo shows anymore with the basket hanging from the pulley?

This gave me an idea, to make a collar for a plastic bucket and place a turkey basket (right side up) and lower my bag into it, then squeeze with a large diameter stock pot lid. What do you think? Send me your basket and I'll try 'er out!

9 out of 10 times I squeeze the grain as I show in the sticky. However there are other times when I need to squeeze a lot more to reach my target wort volume and this is when I do the squeezing method described here. This happened when I brewed a pumpkin ale using rice hulls and the rice hulls sucked up all the wort.

I think your idea is good too but you'll have to get your own basket!

 

[1MadScientist]

I brewed 2 days ago. I now have a sweet pulley system and I squeezed the bag in place with 2 pot lids. I let it hang about 30 minutes while I was waiting for the boil. This is my squeezing of choice now. Flickr: Mad Scientist Brewhaus' Photostream